Google to destroy browsing data to settle consumer privacy lawsuit
Google agreed to destroy billions of data records to settle a lawsuit claiming it secretly tracked the internet use of people who thought they were browsing privately.
Google agreed to destroy billions of data records to settle a lawsuit claiming it secretly tracked the internet use of people who thought they were browsing privately.
Terms of the settlement were filed on Monday in the Oakland, California federal court, and require approval by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs valued the accord at more than $5 billion, and as high as $7.8 billion. Though users will not receive damages, they may still sue individually for damages.
The class action began in 2020, covering millions of Google users who used private browsing since June 1, 2016.
Users alleged that Google’s analytics, cookies and apps let the Alphabet unit improperly track people who set Google’s Chrome browser to “Incognito” mode and other browsers to “private” browsing mode.
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